The Greatest Evil Read online

  Obviously, once all the questions had been answered and the forms filled in to the Church’s satisfaction, it would be next to impossible to claim that due to some circumstance there had been no marriage from the moment of exchange of consent.

  Handling marriage cases was not high on Koesler’s thrill list.

  However, tonight a marriage case was coming at him from left field. The couple were not even his parishioners. Earlier in the week, he’d received a letter from his friend Vincent Delvecchio.

  Vincent was not in a position to be very helpful regarding the problem. He had not yet been exposed to marriage law in the Catholic Church. All he was able to contribute was that there may have been a previous marriage on his uncle’s part. What Vince knew for certain was that his aunt and uncle had been married by a judge. From the time of that marriage, his aunt had never again received Communion. His uncle was not a Catholic, so Communion was not an issue for him. Not much help there to enable Koesler to anticipate what the problem might be.

  On the other hand, even married people would be hard-pressed to explain the canonical status of their marriage. Specific study of Canon Law would be required to understand concepts such as validity and liceity. Canon Law was not kind to the unpracticed eye.

  When Mrs. Morris phoned for an appointment, Vincent’s letter proved helpful. Without the letter, Koesler would have been most reluctant to see a couple who not only weren’t parishioners but who lived beyond his parish boundaries.

  The appointment was for 10 P.M. Rather late, but the first slot Koesler had available after instructions. In point of fact, Koesler had a mixed bag this evening. Immediately after dinner, he had scheduled instructions for 6, 7, and 8—followed at 9 by a couple making preliminary arrangements for a wedding.

  They were a typical engaged couple. Once they had decided on a wedding, their first move was to reserve a hall for the reception. Only then did they call the rectory to book a time and date that would blend with the hall’s availability. It worked; they had no idea how lucky they were.

  It was a simple enough marriage. Both were Catholic, of age, free to marry, and were not being forced. Yet each had to fill out “A” forms requiring answers to questions that never would have occurred to them. They were surprised at this—and at the necessity for each to present a copy of the baptismal records showing no notation of marriage. Said record had to have been issued within the past six months—further proof that neither had a previous marriage. Once they were married at St. William’s, notice would be sent to the parish of baptism for each of them. Their marriage would be recorded in their baptismal records. And from that time on, whenever either of them was issued a baptismal certificate, notice of their marriage would be included on that certificate.

  The chief concerns of this couple, typically, were gowns, invitations, seating arrangements, flowers for the church, food service—buffet or banquet—etc.

  Koesler tried to direct them to thoughts of the liturgy and, especially to give them an awareness of the gravity of the step they were about to take.

  There was a mere modicum of difficulty in arranging for a canonical Catholic marriage. Challenging the validity of such a marriage would be next to impossible. Koesler wanted them to know that.

  For as this carefree young couple left the rectory, an older couple entered with a serious problem that might well face just such an impossibility.

  At the door, Martha Morris identified herself and introduced her husband to Father Koesler.

  The priest led the way to his small office almost at the end of the hall. The farthest door in this hallway led directly into the church. Rectory, church, and convent were joined. Cozy. That’s the way the pastor liked things, and he’d had the buildings constructed to his liking.

  Once they were settled in, Koesler commenced. “As I told you on the phone, I got a letter from your nephew. So I was waiting for your call. Vince didn’t give me much information … I guess he couldn’t really. So …?”

  “You’ll have to excuse us, Father,” Martha said. “We’re very nervous. We look at you as our last hope. It’s … well, if this doesn’t work, we’ll be at the end of the line.”

  “You shouldn’t feel that way.” The last thing Koesler wanted was to be “the end of the line.” He would, of course, do his best. But he wasn’t an ultimate expert. He was shy of experience—very shy. Still, there were all those books on the shelves behind him. He found it encouraging that he could depend on them for whatever he lacked in age and experience.

  “But, begging your pardon, Father,” Frank said deferentially, “we’re more than a little scared. We’ve told our story to a priest before—or at least we tried to—”

  “You tried to? What do you mean, you ‘tried to’? Which priest did you see?”

  “Our pastor,” Martha said. “Or at least the pastor of the parish we live in. He had no patience with us. We barely got started when he practically threw us out of the rectory.”

  “And your parish is …?”

  “Nativity … the one next door to this parish.”

  Nativity, thought Koesler. Father Keller. That bastard again!

  Koesler hadn’t needed to be ordained to be made aware of Keller’s reputation. Keller was the third in a triumvirate of tyrannical east side pastors who were known as virtual autocratic Nazis.

  Well, Koesler thought, at least I can start from scratch. The fact that Keller had treated a couple of well-meaning people like trash had absolutely no bearing on the legitimacy of their case.

  “We thought,” Frank said, “that it might be very simple. I’m not a Catholic—nor was my first wife a Catholic. Just a couple of people not even married by a minister; we had a justice of the peace. We—Martha and I—figured the Catholic Church wasn’t concerned about a marriage that had absolutely nothing to do with the Church.”

  Koesler shook his head slowly. “That’s not the way it works, Frank.”

  “Well,” Frank said, “at least we’re making progress. Right about here was where Father Keller threw us out.”

  They all laughed. It eased some of the tension.

  “We go to church regularly,” Martha said. “Sundays and Holy Days. When Father Keller sees us, he sort of curls his lip. But at least he doesn’t tell us to get out.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t tell us anything,” Frank added.

  Martha seemed suddenly apprehensive. “This won’t cause a problem, will it?”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “Well, a problem for you. Will you get in trouble because you’re taking care of us? I’m kind of worried that Father Keller will be upset.”

  “No, that won’t happen,” Koesler stated firmly. “It wouldn’t happen in any case. But especially since you did see him and he refused to even consider your case.”

  Privately, Koesler mused about how wonderful it would be to wrap up this package and toss it back to Keller. If this couple’s marriage could be convalidated with Koesler’s guidance and help, it would be worth the price of admission to see Keller’s face when he inevitably found out what had happened.

  Koesler pushed aside a mess of papers—notes, mail, and the like—from the center of his small desk. He picked up a pen and pulled a yellow legal pad toward him, looked at Frank and Martha, and said in an upbeat tone, “Well, let’s see what we’ve got …”

  The Morrises inched their chairs closer to the desk.

  “A little while ago,” Koesler addressed Frank, “you said you thought that since the Catholic Church was not involved with your first marriage, that the Church would not recognize that marriage. Actually, the opposite is true: The Catholic Church actually recognizes any legal marriage ceremony as being valid.”

  Frank look amazed. “That’s rather open-minded of the Church.”

  “But it doesn’t work to your advantage, Frank.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Take your first marriage. The Church accepts that ceremony, no matter how it was performed—
as long as whoever performed it was recognized by the state of Michigan—as a valid—real—marriage. That means that, in the eyes of the Church, before you can marry again you must prove that the first marriage is null. That for some specific reason—and there are only a few reasons the Church will consider—an impediment—a block—obstructed the validity of that marriage.”

  “These ‘specific reasons,’ Father: What are they?” Martha asked.

  “First, Martha: Are you sure you want to sit in on this?” Koesler asked. “It can get a bit … personal.”

  “I want to be here.”

  “I want her here,” Frank affirmed.

  “Okay.” Koesler nodded. “Now, a lot of these impediments are quite obviously not applicable here. Holy Orders, for instance, is a serious impediment.”

  “You mean—” Martha began.

  “That because I am a priest, I may not marry. But …” He thought for a moment. “Okay, maybe I can explain it this way: Suppose I get married. And suppose later on, I get divorced. After which, my ex-wife wants to marry someone else in a Catholic ceremony. The Church starts out by presuming that a marriage exists. Now, my ex-wife has to prove to the Church’s satisfaction that our union—well, that it was not a marriage—in other words, that no marriage existed. So she proves that at the time of our marriage ceremony, I was a priest. The Church would immediately grant her an annulment. Because in the eyes of the Church, there was no marriage between me and that woman—because, as a priest validly ordained by the Catholic Church, I am not, in the eyes of that Church, allowed to marry. Therefore, she, in effect, never married, so she is free to marry.

  “Now, that’s what we want to find in your marriage to—what is her name?”

  “Mildred. Do you need her maiden name?”

  “No …” Koesler smiled. “I was just getting tired of referring to her as ‘that woman.’”

  Koesler then began to tick off various possible impediments: consanguinity—if she were a close relative; if she refused to have children; if she were previously married; etc.

  It reminded Frank of the questions asked before some medical procedure. Have you ever had mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc.?

  To both series of questions, Frank’s answer would be, No. He’d had—oddly—no childhood diseases, nor had his first marriage involved any of the possible impediments Koesler mentioned. “No,” he said aloud.

  Questionnaire concluded, Koesler said, “I was afraid of that.” Noting their disappointment, he added, “But we’re not done.

  “Frank, what was there about your marriage to Mildred that didn’t work? In your own words, what made the marriage fail?”

  “That’s a pretty big question, Father.” He thought for some time. Finally, he said, “Incompatibility … incompatibility that started early on and just got worse. We were great in bed”—his face reddened but he went on—“but after that, in just about everything else, the two of us could have been living on different planets.”

  “Did you have any children?”

  “No. Neither of us wanted kids. The way things turned out it was a lucky break we didn’t have any—say, Father: Could that be one of those impediments? I know the Church doesn’t look too kindly on birth control …”

  “’Fraid not, Frank. Now, was there anything the two of you differed on or argued about a lot?”

  Frank pondered. “Seems religion came up every so often,” he said slowly.

  “Religion? What about religion?”

  “Mildred was Lutheran. She was pretty strong about it. She was always after me to join her church. She was really sore because I refused to be baptized—”

  “Wait a minute …” Koesler sat up straight. “She wanted you to be rebaptized in the Lutheran Church?”

  “Rebaptized? No. I was never baptized at all.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because my dad and mother told me more than once. They said they wanted that kind of choice to be all mine. They left the whole thing about religion and baptism up to me.” Frank chuckled. “As it turns out, I didn’t do anything about either one. I didn’t want to join the Lutheran Church. And I couldn’t see getting baptized if I wasn’t going to join.”

  “But you go to church all the time now …”

  “Well, see, as incompatible as I was with Mildred that’s how compatible I am with Marty. I would’ve joined the Catholic Church and gotten baptized long ago, but Father Keller wasn’t in much of a receptive attitude.”

  “To give the devil his due,” Koesler said, “Father Keller didn’t have much of a choice there. He couldn’t receive you into the Catholic Church until or unless you got your present marriage validated.”

  “You mean this ‘living in sin’ bit?” Bitterness tinged Frank’s voice.

  “That’s an unfortunate label,” Koesler said. “No one can crawl inside you and know what’s going on in your conscience. Your life of sin or grace is yours—and yours alone—to know.

  “But so much for the internal forum—your soul. What we’re talking about is the external forum: whether or not we can baptize you and convalidate your marriage. And I think you have just uncovered maybe the only path to doing just that.”

  Smiles all around.

  “How? How, Father?” Martha asked. “We’ll do anything!”

  “I’ve got to tell you right off,” Koesler said, “it’s a slim chance. I studied it in the seminary—not all that long ago—but I’ve never used it. Never thought I would.”

  8

  “It’s called the Pauline Privilege,” Father Koesler informed the rapt couple. He smiled. “I’ll try to explain it as briefly as possible,” he said, as he turned to search through the volumes on the shelves behind him.

  The Bible, the Code of Canon Law, a book on moral theology—he consulted each cursorily, then turned back to his visitors. “This whole notion is based on St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians—the seventh chapter.” He half smiled at some private joke. “For one who never married, Paul had an awful lot to say about marriage and to married people.”

  Koesler did not reflect that in this he was in the same boat as St. Paul.

  “One of the questions for the early Church to settle was how to relate to non-Christians,” Koesler explained. “Christians were a tiny minority surrounded by a world where religion was a mixed bag. Polytheists and pantheists could count their gods—and atheists had no god.

  “And all the earliest Christians were Jews, of course. So the Apostles had to lead their disciples through the rough waters of controversy.

  “While the first Christians were Jewish in nationality, they were no longer Jews as a religious body. So, controversies raged over which Jewish laws should be preserved and which should be abandoned in this new religion. Customs—laws, as far as the Jews were concerned–like circumcision and dietary proscriptions—were wrangled over and, eventually, pretty much abandoned.

  “One of the touchiest situations was intermarriage between Christians and non-Christians. And a companion problem was how to treat a mixed religious marriage that ended in divorce.

  “Following the dictates of Jesus—and with no time yet for theological development—marriage for Christians was monogamous and lifelong.

  “Now: Was there a distinction to be drawn when a non-Christian permanently left his or her Christian partner?

  “St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, considers the plight of a Christian whose non-Christian partner leaves. As fate has it, this Christian falls in love again. Oddly, again, the loved one is non-Christian. But this non-Christian wishes to become Christian and marry.

  “Paul grants the request as a ‘Privilege of the Faith.’

  “Here, for the first time, we are not talking about an annulment. This one is called a dissolution.”

  Frank and Martha were listening—hard. But Father Koesler realized that although they were taking in his words, a good deal of explanation was still necessary, particularly for Frank, the non-Catho
lic in this affair.

  “You see, Frank, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, you and Mildred had a valid but not sacramental marriage. Now, ordinarily, you’d think of a priest as the minister of sacraments. But not the sacrament of matrimony: The bride gives the sacrament to the groom and vice versa. The priest, in this case, is an official witness.

  “Now, in your case there was no sacrament because you were never baptized—and one has to be baptized in order to give or receive a sacrament.

  “So, if this case plays out the way we want, you and Martha could be married in the Catholic Church. You would be baptized and then when you give your consent in marriage, your first marriage would be dissolved as a ‘Privilege of the Faith.’”

  “But … but that’s wonderful!” Martha was almost breathless and enthused at the same time. “When can we do this—when can we get married in the Church?”

  “Not so fast, Marty,” Frank cautioned. “There’s more to this than meets the eye …” He turned back to Koesler. “… ain’t there, Father?”

  “I’m afraid so. Yes.”

  “What? What?” Martha’s enthusiasm plummeted.

  “It’s in the proof,” Koesler said. He looked at Frank. “You’ve got to prove that you never were baptized.”

  “How do you prove something never happened?” Frank asked.

  “Exactly,” Koesler responded. “If you—yes, you, Frank”—Koesler nodded—”if you were to take a baby into a baptistery and baptize that baby, that baby would be validly baptized. Yes …” He nodded again, anticipating Frank’s question. “… in the eyes of the Catholic Church, the baptism would be valid whether the baby was baptized in a Methodist church, a Lutheran church—or a bowl of water in the kitchen. For baptism, the ordinary minister of the sacrament is a priest. But for validity, anyone with the correct intention can baptize.

  “So you see the problem when we allege that you never were baptized, Frank. What if when you were a baby, a kindly uncle—aunt, grandfather, whatever—took you to … anywhere there was water—”